


Everything is alright

by saintbonafide



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Cuddling, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, alternative universe - paramedics, is this appropriately tagged?, slight angst, struggling to talk about feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-07 21:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21224333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintbonafide/pseuds/saintbonafide
Summary: Brad and Patrice aren't okay but as long as they have each other. Everything will be fine.





	1. Brad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romanvacation](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanvacation/gifts).
**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brad dreams about a call they had a couple of days ago. Patrice is there to comfort him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are mine.

It’s one of those nights.

One where two cups of coffee can’t shake the sleepiness that settles deep in Brad’s body. It’s quiet in the ambulance. The calm before the storm if he could say that. It’s laughable really, he was the one who made that decision to do this job even if everybody told him not to. Though it’s still hard for him to get used to the chaos that can follow shortly after somebody says the dreaded Q word.

Patrice clears his throat. It’s enough to pull Brad out of his thoughts as he turns his head to look over at him, lifting an eyebrow in slight confusion. His partner looks at him and Brad can see the dark circles under his eyes. A drained look on his face. “You can sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get a call. You look tired anyways.” Patrice tells him. 

A mutual understanding between them that they are getting old for night shift despite being in their mid-twenties. Today, it’s Brad turn to get some shut-eye before they get dispatched to a call. He hums in response and shifts to get comfortable. Which isn’t the easiest as he’s twisting, turning, adjusting the seat before he finally finds a position where he can comfortably sleep in. Brad closes his eyes, letting the sound of the radio in the background lull him to sleep. 

~

Brad wakes to Patrice shaking him awake, yelling his name about a car accident and they have to go now. He’s adjusting to the flashing lights and sirens, making sure his boots are tied. There’s an odd feeling in the back of his mind but he shrugs it off as he makes his way towards the back. Checking the trauma bag to make sure that whoever used the ambulance last refilled whatever they used. Again, the weird feeling comes back. 

Then, it hits him. He’s watching himself do these things and every movement feels mechanical. The whole scene leaves an odd taste in his mouth as he watches himself squeeze through the tight spaces of the ambulance, refilling what they should need knowing fully well that sometimes it’s not enough.

Not enough.

He feels sick to his stomach now that he’s finally realizing what is playing out in front of him. The call that has been haunting him ever since it had happened. When the victim stopped breathing in the back of their ambulance and the wails that could be heard once more ambulances responded to the call. It was a horrific accident that was haunting him. 

No - no. He’s not going to watch this. He doesn’t have to. Brad yells at himself to wake up, anything to try and get him to jolt awake. nothing works. He’s stuck listening to himself being prepared for the scene by Patrice. Who he desperately wishes shakes him awake soon or something because his heart is beating fast and there's a lump in his throat. The rest of it is a blur and it hits him that he’s watching himself get out of the ambulance. He follows closely behind.

The sirens have stopped but the lights are still on. Providing some sight in the dark as he freezes. There’s the familiar sound of crying and people yelling. It’s too much - he yells at himself to wake up but it doesn’t work. All he can do is watch the scene unfold in front of him, a lump in his throat. There’s so much yelling, so much crying, there's more sirens and he’s sick to his stomach. 

Wake up.

WAKE UP.

~

“Brad, wake up!” 

He jolts from his seat. Patrice's voice is what finally wakes him up from his dream if you could even call it that. there’s something rolling down his face. Whether it’s sweat or a tear, he has no clue. Brad takes a minute to let his eyes adjust, taking in where he is and what’s happening. There’s nothing except the radio going on in the background. Patrice stares at him, worried but nothing seems to come out.

“We got a call about a sixty-two-year-old woman. Experiencing mild to severe pain in her back,” is all that Patrice says. Nothing about how Brad is rattled by whatever dream he had. But brad knows better. As if Patrice would let the subject go, he’ll bring it up later when they aren’t busy. After their shift or sooner if Brad is unable to function for the rest of the night.

His silence speaks to Patrice, something that they both had to adapt to. They both realize that sitting down and talking about their feelings when they had an active call wasn’t the best idea. Though neither of them felt like updating the other about the Stanley Cup playoffs, news about their home life, or just simply talking about whatever topic they can latch onto to make the night go faster. It was going to be one of those nights that he hated. The silence allowed him to swim in his thoughts with nothing to ground him. 

Except Patrice.

He looks over at Patrice, who’s focused on driving. It’s also when he starts to take everything in. Committing to remembering every small detail about his partner to memory.

To put it simply. Patrice looks tired, drained both emotionally and mentally. There’s a certain look to his face that seems almost mechanical. Just like how Brad felt like in his dream. The features of his face are difficult to see from the streetlights providing inadequate lighting into the front. But it’s enough to show all the wear and tear he has gone through in the seven years he has been working.

It makes Brad think if he looks the same.

~

They make it through the rest of their night unharmed with little to no chaotic calls. which is a miracle in his eyes. He thinks while packing his stuff in his car. It nearly startled him when Patrice comes up to him. A comforting hand on his shoulder and a whisper that he’s coming over. 

He’s gone faster than Brad can reply.

~

He makes it home, Patrice following closely behind as they walk through the front door together. A thick fog in the air which makes brad feel like he’s suffocating slowly. There’s no use in opening the blinds. He’s planning on sleeping anyways when Patrice is done and leaves. 

“You want something to drink?” Brad offers when they are both seated at the kitchen table. Patrice shakes his head to decline his offer. Letting them sit in silence, something that they find themselves doing even more. Something that he hates. The more they sit in silence, the more he starts to feel anxious. Letting his nails tap on the table, his leg bouncing up and down.

Nothing comes.

It isn’t clear to him when they both agreed to Patrice sleeping at his place. Brad didn’t ask, Patrice didn’t say anything. They take turns jumping in the shower and getting dressed. Brad takes longer. Looking in the mirror and it almost makes him laugh at how he feels so unrecognizable but still fully aware that it is him. Nothing has changed about him except he has a better haircut and finally knows how to style his hair.

Once he emerges, Patrice sits on the bed staring at his phone. The brightness has been turned down to the lowest setting. A frown evident on his face as he settles his phone onto the nightstand. 

Brad doesn’t comment about it.

He makes sure the blackout blinds (a good investment) are closed. Which essentially makes it harder for him to make it back to his bed. Leaving him feeling around for the edge of the bed before he finally, crawls under the blankets. But it’s still silent. 

He hates it.

It takes him a second to get comfortable before he’s reaching for his phone to put on the ambient music album he downloaded, a suggestion from his friend Torey. It doesn’t help the silence much but it does calm him down enough to stop moving around. Eventually, he finally stays put in the position facing away from Patrice. Unsure if he should say something or just let it be for now, let it be a conversation in the morning.

There’s the sound of rustling and then there’s an arm around his waist, pulling him closer with a sigh. His thoughts cease, They stop running around in his head and for once. He enjoys the quiet. The sound of Patrice breathing, the sound of his playlist playing and the sound of the fan going. They all slowly lull him to sleep.


	2. Patrice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after, Patrice wakes before Brad and reflects on their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't focus on the paramedic aspect. I just wanted to indulge and go a bit more into depth about their relationship considering they both never really established what they were.  
I didn't edit this so all mistakes are mine, enjoy.  


Patrice is the first one to wake up. He slowly and carefully retrieves his arm from where it had been resting. It’s a miracle that he doesn’t wake Brad up with his jerky movements but he’s pretty sure that there isn’t anything in the world right now that can wake him from his sleep. With one last look at Brad, Patrice carefully swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Shivering at the cold floor beneath him.

In a way, it grounds him from the weird feeling that had been plaguing him. A weird funk in his head that wasn’t strong or huge. It was more or so something that was always there that slowly transitioned into something that pissed him off whenever he woke up to the familiar funky feeling. It wasn’t something that hindered his ability to work but it was always there, hard to ignore. Something that he could never shake off or get used to. 

He reaches from his phone to distract himself from overthinking. There’s a few missed calls from his mother that he’ll have to get back to, a couple of texts from his friends and a few notifications about the results of the games last night. Patrice sighs as he gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom with his phone. There isn’t a reason to be here but he decides that splashing his face with cold water will do him some good.

Patrice nearly flinches at the way the mirror seems to mock him. It’s ridiculous to even think that an inanimate object could even be capable of doing something like that but here he is. Staring at himself, which nearly makes him laugh because it’s only been what? A few years since he started working and he looks like this. Before he can get swamped with any more thoughts, he leaves the bathroom quickly, stopping in the bedroom for a brief moment.

There’s not a lot of light spilling into the bedroom which makes it hard to navigate. If you were someone who hadn’t spent the majority of your nights here so it’s no surprise when Patrice can make his way through the room to the bedroom door. Maybe he should wake up Brad so they can talk, go and get lunch since it’s too late to even call it breakfast. The soft snores coming from him help decide that he should let Brad rest up especially after what happened last night.

The door gently shuts behind him as he makes his way into the kitchen. There, he sits down and calls his mom back. They have a short conversation, his mom updating him about the situation at home and she manages to get Patrice to talk a bit about his feelings. Eventually, they both say goodbye with promises that Patrice will visit soon and he’s left in the quiet once again. It seems a bit too quiet for his liking, used to hearing Brad go off about how the Bruins had shitty referees last night or when he’s laughing loud enough to wake the dead.

Brad, he ponders. Brad’s somebody he never really thought he’d be good friends with. If friends is something they can call themselves at this point. There is a lot of things they do that are borderline more on the boyfriend side. Like when they both went on vacation together, taking time off to travel to Quebec. It was a nice trip. Brad got to meet his parents and it was overall a great experience for both of them. The trip was more or so a buddy trip. Like the one that Brad took him on when they both went hunting. Which was them drinking beers and sharing a ton of wild stories from their past.

After that, the lines blur together and Patrice himself isn’t sure when it spiralled into something more. Waking up next to Brad somedays, going out to eat on days off at fancy restaurants he’d bring a loved one to, or just those silent moments he treasures like the time Brad laid his head on his lap. When Brad fell asleep to him running a hand through his hair gently. Those are moments you can’t classify as friends just goofing around but they never really told the other to cut it out. There was always this agreement that none of them had to say but they knew the other needed it.

Patrice shakes his head to clear his thoughts and gets up from the table. It’s a little late to eat breakfast but the way that Brad’s fridge looks, they have no other choice but to eat breakfast. So, he gets to work with what he has. Which is successful in his eyes because he doesn’t ruin the food or set off the fire alarm. Besides, it would have ruined the “surprise” but it’s not much of a surprise anymore considering how many times the other has made food while the other slept peacefully. He shakes his head, again to clear the thoughts from getting him sidetracked from what he was doing originally which was putting the plates onto the table.

A sense of accomplishment washes over him as he smiles, making his way down the hallway and into Brad’s room. Patrice quietly makes his way over to Brad’s side of the bed and sits down next to him. Easily making out the distinct facial features. There’s hair sticking up in all the directions and Patrice won’t lie when he says he can’t help but brush a few pieces of hair out of his face. The small movement gets a reaction, Brad mumbles a what before smushing half of his face back into the pillow. He smiles at the predictable reaction.

“I made breakfast, lunch. Whatever you want to call it.” Patrice states, shaking him just a bit to motivate himself enough to climb out of bed and venture out of his room. Which seems to work as Brad cracks open an eye just enough to look up at him. There isn’t anything said for a full minute before Brad mutters something that is muffled by his pillow but whatever, Patrice will count that down as a win for managing to get something out of him.

He gets up from the bed and leaves the room, leaving the door slightly open to let some light in so that he doesn’t hear Brad trip over something into the room. Which was just a recipe for disaster at this point. With one last look at the door, he makes his way back downstairs where he sits down at his usual spot, Staring at the scratch marks on the worn table, his eyes immediately falling on where he had scratched “Patrice was here” onto the table one night. 

A minute later, Brad comes stumbling down the hallway, shielding his eyes from the light spilling in from the blinds which he adjusts to his liking so there is barely any light shining through the cracks in the blinds. Patrice catches himself staring at this zombie-like Brad making his way around the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee that he forgot he made. It takes another minute for Brad to settle into the chair across from him, where he immediately digs in which eventually turns into him coughing from eating too fast and the both of them going into a fit of laughter.

They finish up rather quickly with Brad offering to help with the dishes. Which leads to both of them, standing in the near dark kitchen. Both of them smiling and talking. He's starting to seem more awake, going on about the dream he had last night which had one of the most beautiful sunsets that he has ever seen. Patrice doesn’t say anything to interrupt him but he does stare at him like he’s one of the best things in the world. 

“I love you,” Patrice says out of the blue amid Brad’s rambling, the three words spill out of his mouth before he could even register that he said it. Until Brad looks over at him, a bit shocked before he gives Patrice one of those beautiful soft smiles.

“I love you too.”

And for once, the cloudy feeling in his head goes away.


End file.
